


Mechanics Can't Fix Everything

by bitofageek



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), captain america: civil war - Fandom
Genre: BAMF Tony Stark, Civil War Team Iron Man, Extremis (Marvel), Extremis Tony Stark, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Not bashing though, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Technokenisis, Technopathy, seriously hand wavy science & psychology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-15 14:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17530220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitofageek/pseuds/bitofageek
Summary: Tony is abandoned in a Hydra base in Siberia.  He makes it home... with a bit of a surprise.





	1. Cold Shoulder

He left. He fucking left me in the middle of a Hydra base in Nowhere, Siberia. So much for ‘never leave a man behind’ “Captain” America. 

Everything hurt, and it was fucking cold. His head, arm, neck, chest, leg. Blood and sweat, and he wasn’t to proud to admit it, tears were freezing on his face. Breathing sucked - and was getting worse…. Oh shit, please, not a panic attack. 

“Friday?” no reply.   “Friday?!?”  still nothing. Major injuries and a broken suit in the middle of a Hydra bunker in Siberia, sure - don’t panic, no problem!  Tony’s breathing quickened and hitched… and stopped as he realized the blood and sweat and tears were melting - and evaporating off his skin. 

What. The. Fuck.   

Tony's mind raced - it couldn’t be! He'd used the most negligible amount of extremis to repair the ARC reactor damage; stabilized it, and inactivated it. This should NOT BE HAPPENING!  Shit, now he was going to possibly EXPLODE in the middle of Siberia? HOW is this my life?  Son of a bitch!  

Instead of cold, his body felt like it was on fire - pins and needles spread, a feeling of acid burning from the inside out. “Please, please, please - oh god I don’t want to ... AHHHHHH!!”  His entire body siezed, and he lost consciousness.

 

***** 

 

Tony woke up, and he wasn’t cold. Nothing hurt. He could move. All of which was a huge surprise. But he was still stuck in the ass end of Siberia with no way to contact Friday.

“BOSS!?!?”

“Friday?  You can hear me?” How is that possible…

“BOSS! YES! FINALLY!  Your signal was lost for 2 hours! Vision is on his way - he received permission from the UN to head to your last known coordinates. I’m updating him now. What is your status, Boss?”

“I…” Tony paused, shocked and unsure how to answer that question. “I’m Ok… I think. I’m not sure. Can you scan me?” 

“Sorry, Boss, I’m unable to...wait” Friday paused, “systems are coming online.”  She paused again, and sounded confused when she began speaking. “Boss, I’m finding evidence of recently healed fractures to your skull, arm, leg, and ribs, but I do not have a record of these injuries occurring. Your temperature is elevated, registering at 102 farenheight.”

“Holy shit” Tony whispered to himself. 

“Boss?” 

“Friday, we need to do some test when I get back to the lab." Tony paused, “I have some theories about what happened and I’m not going to complain” he huffed, “but, yeah, this is a bit of a surprise.”

“I’ll get everything ready, Boss”. 

“How long till Vision arrives, Fri?  My suit’s power is pretty much gone. I’m surprised we had enough power to scan…”

“Uh, Boss?” she questioned, "Suit power is at 55% and climbing. Functionality is coming back online. You should be able to move relatively easily, though power for flight is not available.”

“That’s not possible… the suit was dead. I didn’t do anythi…” oh.  Oh boy.  We’re going to need to do more tests.


	2. Hot Stuff

Vision brought him home from the bunker, more or less in one piece.  His body was in better shape than it had ever been. His mind, and his heart, though? A different matter entirely. He’d pretty much collapsed once Vision got him into the jet and spent much of the ride asleep or semi-conscious. It was a strange ride - he could feel waves of concern and care coming from Vision, and hear the echo of Jarvis’ programming in those waves. For the first time, it didn’t hurt. As Vision helped him out of the quinjet, Tony leaned heavily on him, grateful for his presence and care. Tony was vaguely aware that Vision LOOKED at him as if he’d never seen Tony before. It was a few weeks before he consciously understood why.

***

Pepper called Dr. Cho, who - baffled - pronounced him healthy, and insisted he return for scans in 6 months to monitor his condition. He made a grumpy face, but grudgingly agreed.

As soon as Tony could, he went to Rhodey’s bedside and apologized profusely - Rhodey thwacked him on the back of the head. Tony promised he’d make him the most awesome braces in existance anyway.

***

After arguing with himself for a while, Tony tracked the weapons and suits he’d made for Rogers, Barton Wilson, and discovered they were in Wakanda. He was initially surprised, but after considering the crap-fest around the Winter Soldier, he got it - was still pissed, but he got it.  Tony and T’Challa had a long conversation over a secure line in which T’Challa got a lot more detail about what happened in the Siberian base. 

Thoughts were exchanged about how to deal with the moral, ethical and political turmoil and fallout after T’Challa’s father’s death.  Having both lost their fathers to violence, and ironically to the same man used as a tool by others to commit that violence, they promised to hold each other accountable as the situation was dealt with.

After that conversation, Tony looked at everything that had happened over the past weeks, months - hell, years, and decided he needed to get some fucking professional help. Rhodey, Pepper and Happy were thrilled.

***

Then the fun began.

“Technokinesis - telekinetic interaction with machines, or even a psychic ability that allows for mental interface with computer data.” Hours of searching to figure out what the hell had happened and he found the word for it on freaking Wikipedia.

How. Is. this. My. Life.?

Honestly, though, he LOVED it. Seriously. Tony thought his understanding of things tech was solid before. Now? He could TALK TO HIS TECH! He could FEEL what was going on with his bots, with Friday. His coffee machine had never been more efficient!

He was seriously glad EVERYTHING tech wasn’t alive cause that would just be - yeah, just - thank goodness.

What was REALLY awesome, was how much better he felt, and how much easier it was to take care of himself.  He felt like he could "organize" his thoughts better. Thinking in code was no big deal - he'd been doing that for decades. But where before the speed of his thoughts felt chaotic, now it was as though he could run different program tracks and navigate easily between them - working on projects, "talking" to his bot-kids, talking to his family (Rhodey, Pepper, Happy).  As a result, his sleep had improved - running "programs" in the background while he slept was SOOOO relaxing, and he woke up refreshed AND having made progress. Freaky, but awesome.

On the hilariously annoying side, Dummy, U and Butterfingers teamed up with Friday had him on a healthy eating schedule. They'd sneak their code into his tech binges until he got his butt out of the lab and into the kitchen to eat. Friday - the smartass (I wonder where she gets it) - would "upload" easy recipes sometimes as he stood looking in the fridge (RUDE!). Sometimes he even made them.

Life, Tony decided, was really weird and unpredictable.


	3. Saturation Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's putting things back together, working on himself, and getting glimpses of where it all became to much - for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is "fluid" time-wise - lots of musings, so ...try to just roll with it, LOL.

It literally took Tony having his heart almost physically broken TWICE before taking the plunge. He had avoided therapy like the plague - for YEARS. "Emotions give me hives!" he'd say, sliding away from conversations where he risked exposing his heart to pain. And exposure - cause it had happened before; all it took was a lapse in ethics and Tony's life was - again - fodder for tabloids. He'd made some interesting connections, though, and found professionals beyond reproach who got him in touch with someone who could a) put up with his snark and sass, b) effectively see past his bullshit and amazingly c) dealt with "atypical" individuals. His mind was regularly boggled by the thought. 

Therapy was a pain in his ass.  But being broken was a bigger pain in the ass so he dug in with a vengeance - how else would Tony effing Stark approach anything?His therapist gave him "homework"... HOMEWORK! But he liked puzzles and challenges so... digging deep, examining, breaking things down, building things up... it became one of his 'things'. There were times where he wanted to repeatedly head-desk or throw things - ugh. But there where other times where he could almost feel a piece of his own personal psychological puzzle slide into place and it was, just - wow. 

Add Extremis-inspired tecknokenisis into the therapy/psychological discovery mix? It was such a Tony Stark thing to happen it was almost hilarious. 

****

Tony's technokenisis made his therapy homework... "interesting". It plugged away like his 'figuring out problems while he slept' background program. He still had to process the info at "normal" human emotional speeds, but the knowledge base he acquired was fascinating - usually.

There were times when it was depressing and personally frustrating - like when his thoughts circled to his former team. 

Tony'd been completely flummoxed by Clint's massive asshole behavior in the Raft. He understood pissed off - he had a layer of that himself for Ross and was planning an epic smackdown for the bastard. But Clint had been a whole other level of aggressive that was alarming. Then he'd come across info about Tramautic Brain Injury and alarm bells starting ringing. Tony didn't recall ANY support being given to Clint post-Loki-brainwashing. Dr. Selvig had been hospitalized and receiving psychological care - but NOT CLINT. The only "treatment" he'd received was a concussion and then back to work. Honestly, if Shield were still around, he'd kick every one of them in the nuts at this point. 

The alarm bells for his former team's status didn't stop there.

Tony knew HE had PTSD - how could he NOT: betrayal, kidnapping, almost being murdered and almost dying several times. If he spent too much time on that list he'd cry, scream, or both. What he hadn't consciously realized (cause, hello, not a professional) and the SUPPOSED professional hadn't dealt with as far as he knew, was how hip deep in PTSD Steve Rogers (and pretty much EVERY Avenger) was. Major physiological changes, war, freezing in the ice, 70 years out of time, RIGHT into another ALIEN battle - and no help, ever, that Tony could see evidence of in SHIELD's files. Add that to the attitudes towards psychological issues during Rogers' day and - damn, what a shit show. Tony pulled together some basic info, made sure it wasn't anything HIPPA wouldn't chase him down for (he wasn't a total jerk), and called T'Challa. T'Challa confirmed Wakanda did have quite a robust support system for such things and he would use his influence and resources to nudge Rogers toward help. Some time later, he tossed a similar head's up to T'Challa about Wanda. 

Tony asked T'Challa to connect him with Shuri regarding Barnes.  He didn't think BARF was a good match, but the premise behind it could possibly help undo the trigger words. With a foundation to start with and Wakanda's psychological support resources, maybe Barnes would have a chance to be a man again and not just a weapon. 

Therapy - it was a pain in his ass, but it saved his ass too. 

He didn't have to ever trust Rogers or the old Avengers, but he wasn't cool with suffering either. 

Was he angry? Sure. Would he forget? No. For his own sake, though, he'd forgive and move on. 

He wasn't going to emotionally "drink poison and expect them to die". 

He had better things to do with his time, and "universal" problems to deal with. 

 


End file.
